The ‘gulp’ moment my daughter exposed my tech dependence, and how Gen Z might be the lost generation – Lizzie Marvelly

Since the “gulp” moment when we realised our daughter was internalising the idea that grown-ups must always need their phone with them, my wife has ordered us wall-mounted “docking stations” where our phones will live from now on when we’re at home.

When we subjected our own device use to scrutiny, we realised that although we made a conscious effort to put our phones down and focus on our daughter while engaging with her, we were nevertheless still role-modelling an unhealthy attachment to our devices. If we carry our phones with us from room to room as if we can never be parted, we’ll pay for it mightily when our little girl grows into a teenager with a nose primed to sniff out hypocrisy. Knowing our forthright little girl, she’ll have no problem pointing out that it’s a bit rich telling her to get off her phone when we carry ours with us at all times.

The idea that social media is damaging is becoming more widespread, although it has been repeatedly rejected by the corporate giants that target teenagers to pad their own pockets, even when their own (suppressed) internal research has documented just how harmful their products are to young brains.

Some parents are also sceptical – how damaging can social media really be when Meta and its ilk go to such pains to parade “safety features” and promote the power of “social connection”? And … if we’re honest with ourselves … when it’s slightly convenient that children and young people can be entertained so thoroughly by a screen, enabling busy and tired parents to take a break.

The fact that many Big Tech executives go to lengths to prevent their own children from accessing the products they peddle to the children of others tells us a lot.

What Silicon Valley executives know, and want to shield their own children from, is that social media can go wildly wrong for our young people – particularly our girls and young women. The story goes something like this:

A girl is given a smartphone.

She sets up social media profiles, creating an online version of herself that she hopes will be judged favourably by others (and though this has become normal, let’s not underestimate the weirdness of a child creating an online “branded” version of themselves), and begins scrolling. Her developing brain circuitry lights up, and she begins to crave the dopamine hit that comes from the tiny pokie machine in her hand. Without careful guidance from older and wiser brains, flicking through her own personalised chaos-reel of kitten videos/eating disorder glamorisation/self-harm videos/makeup tutorials becomes the way she spends seven-plus hours of her day.

Meanwhile, her parents notice she has become withdrawn and irritable. They begin to wonder what has happened to their daughter. By the time they start to question the device that follows her around as if it’s glued to her hand, their daughter has likely been exposed to real harm – dodgy narratives about how she should look, violent or pornographic images, sycophantic AI bots reinforcing skewed ideas or even scams and blackmail. From there, parents start on the back foot – forced to rapidly upskill themselves to reverse the damage that has already been done.

Some of the horror stories of what can go wrong when young people are drawn in by social media involve child sexual abuse and youth suicide. I’m personally grateful at least that we are armed with the knowledge of these tragedies and can make better decisions for our young daughter. I wish we’d known more earlier, a feeling I’m sure is shared by many other parents – particularly parents of Gen Z.

Lizzie Marvelly is the chief executive of GirlGuiding New Zealand, which provides programmes centred on confidence-building, outdoor adventure, life skills and leadership for young people aged 5-18. Photo / Janna Dixon

Gen Z may well come to be known as the lost generation. Those who were the true guinea pigs of the experiment of what happens to developing brains when you expose them to machines designed to aggressively capture and retain their attention. The generation for whom boredom is such a novelty that it presents as an itchy-scratchy kind of discomfort. The kids whose screen addictions Big Tech ruthlessly commoditised and sold to advertisers and influencers for record profits.

Those kids are currently finishing their education and entering the workforce. They are doing so with significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression than older generations. They’re reporting high levels of loneliness and social isolation. They’re tired and wired, lying awake doom-scrolling a bedtime snack of overstimulating, discombobulating shorts designed to ultimately a) make them buy something, b) make them feel defective in the hope that they will buy something or c) keep them scrolling endlessly until their brains dribble out their ears.

We can’t go back in time and parent Gen Z differently, but we at least owe them a moment of reckoning, and a promise to do better for their younger siblings. A promise to protect childhood and adolescence by prioritising real-world experiences: joining a sports team, learning a musical instrument, developing life skills through programmes like Guiding and Scouting, climbing trees, skinning knees, eating dinner together as a family with no screens.

Let’s give developing brains a chance to grow strong, curious and nimble before subjecting them to the digital drugs being dealt by Big Tech. Let’s not let corporate greed steal our kids’ childhoods.

Lizzie Marvelly is the chief executive of GirlGuiding New Zealand, which provides programmes centred on confidence-building, outdoor adventure, life skills and leadership for young people aged 5-18.

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